U.S. Election - Because we know better than you do

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

2 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

As much as I detest Trump, I detest the Pope more. He should shut the fuck up about American politics.

A true example of politics making strange bedfellows! 

[alguien]

Just listened to an interesting episode of Fresh Air's podcast from last week about polling, made me think of this thread. There was stuff in there I didn't know. (for example, I though polling could use people's cell phone #s)

Polling Is Ubiquitous, But Is It Bad For Democracy?

I'd give it a listen, but from the transcript:

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Jill Lepore, welcome to FRESH AIR. So, you know, you write in your article that polls may be more influential than ever. You also write that you think polls may be less reliable than ever. A typical response rate to polls is in the single digits. Less than 10 percent of people who are asked to respond to a poll actually follow through and respond?

JILL LEPORE: Yeah. Isn't that a little staggering to think about?

GROSS: Is it the low single digits or the high single digits?

LEPORE: (Laughter) There's a range. I think nine is not uncommon. I mean, it can be very much at the high end of the range. I think that - to know whether that's a crisis or not requires understanding what pollsters do or what public opinion researchers do more broadly. They use a sample survey method, so they conduct interviews with what is supposed to be a statistically representative sample of the electorate. That sample is going to be tiny, and a sample works to represent all of our views as an electorate, so long as it is well-chosen. Choosing that (laughter) sample is harder when the response rate is lower. When public opinion survey research started in the 1930s, the response rate was well above 90. People considered it a civic duty. It was like a thrill. Someone would come knock on your door and want to talk to you for 45 minutes about politics. Now I think if someone calls you at 6:01 p.m. (laughter) and wants to talk to you about politics while you're trying to get the, you know, the chicken fried, you hang up the phone. There are a whole bunch of forces that are behind that. There's just a fatigue. There are so many pollsters. And then there's - just people don't have landlines anymore. I think it under - only 40 percent of Americans have land lines, and you can't do random dialing to cell phones. The FCC made that rule, and they recently reinforced it.

And then you have the problem of the people who answer the phone are really different from a random sampling of the electorate, right. The people who answer the phone tend to be older. They tend to be more conservative. Those are the people who have landlines. And then the people who answer the phone and are going to really participate (laughter) in your survey, they tend to be people who have a very strong sense of civic obligation, and they're involved in their communities. They tend to be voters. You know, they're very goodhearted (laughter), civic-minded people, and they're overrepresented, unless you work harder to represent the smaller number of people that you can get who are not those people. So pre-election polling, in particular, is just in crisis.

So you know what pollsters will say - because pollsters want to get the right answer, right? It's not actually a fraudulent industry. Their bread-and-butter is making an accurate prediction. They will say they can accommodate and moderate the ill effect of a very low response rate by weighting their responses and by doing more calling. And so that means polls get more expensive and the results don't really bear out those promises. So there's this whole other kind of cottage industry in trying to figure out which polls might be reliable.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

The nuclear deterrence argument is a joke. They're weapons so wildly destructive that they can't be used without triggering a global cataclysm- people who say we can't get rid of them are, farcically, fearful of a Doomsday Gap. No one is going to invade the United States any time soon and I'm certain we'll do just fine in such an event using conventional weapons.

Again, it's not physically possible, at this time, for any foreign army to invade the U.S. The topography of the U.S. is a natural barrier on every front.

[TerraPrime]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Again, it's not physically possible, at this time, for any foreign army to invade the U.S. The topography of the U.S. is a natural barrier on every front.

Any foreign army who is hostile to the U.S., anyways. Canada can easily take over a few border cities whenever they finish their cup of Tim Horton coffee.

[Mexal]

9 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

As much as I detest Trump, I detest the Pope more. He should shut the fuck up about American politics.

Trump's response to the Pope.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, TerraPrime said:

As much as I detest Trump, I detest the Pope more. He should shut the fuck up about American politics.

Actually he did not get involved. He explicitly did not give an endorsement of any kind. He made a general statement whether building a wall is a "Christian thing to do." And the Pontifex Maximus true to his name said, Christian mindset is building Bridges not walls.

If you consider that an involvement in US politics, then you might reevaluate the point of seperation between Church and State. And whether you believe politics should not involved religious beliefs.

*shrug*

[OnionAhaiReborn]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Again, it's not physically possible, at this time, for any foreign army to invade the U.S. The topography of the U.S. is a natural barrier on every front.

I'm not sure if you're even disagreeing with me but, I agree with this- it's why I said "No one is going to invade the United States any time soon."

[TerraPrime]

1 minute ago, Notone said:

Actually he did not get involved. He explicitly did not give an endorsement of any kind. He made a general statement whether building a wall is a "Christian thing to do." And the Pontifex Maximus true to his name said, Christian mindset is building Bridges not walls.

If you consider that an involvement in US politics, then you might reevaluate the point of seperation between Church and State. And whether you believe politics should not involved religious beliefs.

*shrug*

That's splitting hair. You think Pope Francis would have made that comment if Trump were not proposing to build a wall to ward off the invading hordes of rapist Mexicans, who are quite significantly Catholic? The context is clear and it's no mistaking that the comment was directed at Trump and people who think like Trump does.

Also, the Pope speaks for Catholics, not all Christians. Jerry Falwell and the late Fred Phelps are every bit as Christian as the Pope is. The Pointiff does not get the authority to declare what is Christian and what is not.

[DanteGabriel]

2 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

I'm not sure if you're even disagreeing with me but, I agree with this- it's why I said "No one is going to invade the United States any time soon."

But Mexicans and Muslims are doing it right now.

[Fez]

35 minutes ago, MerenthaClone said:

Yeah, okay guy.  I thought that's why we paid for having 10 supercarriers to the rest of the world's grand total of 2 (the UK's, neither of which are seaworthy at the moment).  We also have two more under construction.  So, uh, who is doing the invading?  Because the design philosophy of "every single branch of the military should be individually capable of beating the rest of the world in a straight-up war while we keep another arsenal ready to blow up the world if it looks like we're going to lose" seems pretty fucking dumb to me.  

Conventional weapons are to nuclear weapons as the ability to destroy a planet is to the power of the force.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

I'm not sure if you're even disagreeing with me but, I agree with this- it's why I said "No one is going to invade the United States any time soon."

I wasn't disagreeing with you, just trying to hammer that point home. The notion that our nukes are what keeps the pending global invasion at bay is just plain nuts.

Seriously Commodore, who gave you a security clearance?

Edited to add:

OAR,

Did you see the latest poll results? They really help your argument that Clinton is not clearly more electable than Sanders.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, TerraPrime said:

That's splitting hair. You think Pope Francis would have made that comment if Trump were not proposing to build a wall to ward off the invading hordes of rapist Mexicans, who are quite significantly Catholic? The context is clear and it's no mistaking that the comment was directed at Trump and people who think like Trump does.

Also, the Pope speaks for Catholics, not all Christians. Jerry Falwell and the late Fred Phelps are every bit as Christian as the Pope is. The Pointiff does not get the authority to declare what is Christian and what is not.

Not sure, but I think you missed my attempt of a pun. Because Pontifex Maximus literally translates into Highest (in the sense of Supreme) Bridgebuilder. Anyway, as the high Priest of catholics and Vicar of Christ it pretty much in his job describtion to define what is Christian. 

Whether Falwell (I am quite confident he has not gone to where angel fly, but to a lake of fire and fry (if such places exist)), Pat Robertson and all those other human being in the furthest sense are Christian or biggots is a matter of opinion.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Trump's response to the Pope.

Amazing. Just amazing.

[Mexal]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Amazing. Just amazing.

Gets better when you see his response to Cruz a week ago. It's amazing how hypocritical he is yet so many people just don't care. They care more that by responding to the Pope and blaming Mexico, he's projecting strength rather than insecurity, which it really is.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

On another note, I have so many bad Thread Titles for the next Election thread.

We all have a Cruz to bear.

or Rafael time to clean the voter pool (ok, that one is slightly racist).

Let's see if anybody comes up with something wittier.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Gets better when you see his response to Cruz a week ago. It's amazing how hypocritical he is yet so many people just don't care. They care more that by responding to the Pope and blaming Mexico, he's projecting strength rather than insecurity, which it really is.

Or how at the start of the campaign he made fun of Catholics and the entire sect of Christanity, caught a bit a flack for it, and the next week he was running around waiving a Bible around claiming how much he loved it.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

 

 

54 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

The "this" in mormont's "in line with this" comment, to which you're responding, does not refer to his conviction that Jindal's value aligns with the majority of leftists and progressives. The "this" in the sentence is referring to the evaluation process that mormont outlined that progressives use to decide if someone should gain their support, or not. Please read for context.

Erm, yes it does? 

Quote

In other words, the discussion is mainly about why someone in broad agreement with a candidate might consider race or gender (in a positive way) as a further reason to vote for them. Even the Jindal remark - not something the poster actually advocated, but something he raised as an interesting question - is in line with this. 

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someone in broad agreement with a candidate

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Jindal

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broad agreement

 

On another note, when did this thread become the Japanese High Command of 1945? Why would an enemy bother with a conventional invasion when they can just nuke your cities one at a time until your unconditional surrender? What good then are natural barriers and millions of soldiers willing to die for the emperor?

That's why you either need nuclear weapons of your own or friends that have them. 

 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

OAR,

Did you see the latest poll results? They really help your argument that Clinton is not clearly more electable than Sanders.

I did and I agree. I think Sanders is benefiting from not having the right-wing media machine come down on him yet, and he will have real issues to face when that happens, but Clinton's problems look worse. She's one of the most famous politicians in the country, a known quantity that everyone already has an opinion of, and an important share of voters is clearly very reluctant to support her. A lot of people just do not like or trust Hillary Clinton, and it's hard to see that changing over the next 9 months. Her best hope is facing an absolutely unacceptable Republican like Trump.

[Fez]

16 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

I did and I agree. I think Sanders is benefiting from not having the right-wing media machine come down on him yet, and he will have real issues to face when that happens, but Clinton's problems look worse. She's one of the most famous politicians in the country, a known quantity that everyone already has an opinion of, and an important share of voters is clearly very reluctant to support her. A lot of people just do not like or trust Hillary Clinton, and it's hard to see that changing over the next 9 months. Her best hope is facing an absolutely unacceptable Republican like Trump.

I think at least some of that is Sanders supporters saying they won't support Clinton but would end up coming around if she is the nominee. Similarly to how Clinton supporters in 2008 said they wouldn't support Obama but ended up coming around.

Back in February and March 2008, McCain was usually ahead of Obama (and Clinton) in the polls.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

3 minutes ago, Fez said:

I think at least some of that is Sanders supporters saying they won't support Clinton but would end up coming around if she is the nominee. Similarly to how Clinton supporters in 2008 said they wouldn't support Obama but ended up coming around.

Back in February and March 2008, McCain was usually ahead of Obama (and Clinton) in the polls.

I wouldn't say "usually," by eyeball it looks like well less than half the time.

And in those polls Clinton's and Obama's numbers look mostly similar (although Obama appears to do somewhat better in general), so if it is reluctant Sanders supporters causing the disparity this time around, I think it's worth considering whether it's a real phenomenon that will have an impact in November.